Fragments of Statue

Marinaro is pleased to present Fragments of Statue, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Bernhard Buhmann.

Uniting the body of work with shape, palette and concept, Buhmann presents nine canvases that move between abstraction and figuration. The title of the exhibition points to the fragility and the fragmentary in the process of identity-making and in experiencing the world. Erstwhile concepts of truth and secure life patterns become brittle in today's fast-moving and unpredictable times. The former certainties resemble statues, which now under actual circumstances disintegrate into their individual parts. Represented as the figural and abstract, they merge in and out of one another, the figural falling apart into abstracted forms and the abstracted shapes building into figuration.

Imbued with art historical references from cubism to hard-edge painting, Buhmann works through pattern and color to create a portrait of contemporary life. The blocks of color, their structure, are stable and secure, identifiable in form. But a slight movement of any one shape could completely collapse the composition, paralleling the changing environmental, economic and political turmoil around us.

In image the works appear stark and pristine, in person the artist’s hand is evident in brush marks and layering of colors. Their construction is cleverly crafted, as a raised leg or blown back hair signifies movement, while at the same time being trapped within fractal planes of color and abstract atmosphere. The shapes are repeated and referenced between the figures and abstract shapes—an orange circular curve in one work is transformed into bouncing red locks in another. The clarity of the form is counteracted by the variety of the interpretation and by the process of negotiating the reference.

Bernhard Buhmann (b. 1979, Bregenz, Austria) received a master’s degree from the University of Applied Arts, Vienna and a master’s in Sociology and Communication Sciences from the University of Vienna. He has had solo exhibitions at Carbon 12, Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Galerie Lisi Hammerle, Bregenz, Austria and Strabag Kunstforum, Vienna, Austria. He has also been included in group shows at Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria; Forum Frohner, Krems, Austria; Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck, Austria; Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates; Muzeul de Arta, Cluj-Napoca, Romania and the Museum of Contemporary Arts, Bucharest, Romania. In 2015, he completed the CCA Andratx Residency in Mallorca, Spain. The artist’s first monograph, Bernhard Buhmann: Amphibian Figures, Knights, Clowns and Beaked Creatures, was published in 2015 by Distanz. He lives and works in Vienna, Austria.